1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for collating a plurality of items into a final sequenced set of the items in preparation for delivery to predetermined delivery points, some items being pre-sequenced according to a prioritized order reflecting the delivery points, and other items being in a different order than the prioritized order.
More specifically, the present invention and method relates to collating a plurality of mail items into a final sequenced set of the items for delivery to predetermined delivery points, some of the mail items being pre-sequenced in delivery point sequence (DPS) of selected carrier routes, and other mail items being in a different order from the delivery point sequence, all items then being merged into carrier walk sequence (CWS).
2. Description of Related Art
The United States Post Service (USPS) allows the mailing industry to prepare mail in a number of formats and sequences. Levels of savings incentives are provided to mailers to format the mail as closely as possible to the actual sequence that the mail is delivered. In doing so, the USPS creates internal savings by reducing the amount of processing and handling required to distribute and deliver the mail and passes a portion of this savings back to their customers through the incentives. For example, a mailing prepared to xe2x80x9ccarrier routexe2x80x9d is prepared by separately packaging the product in bundles. Each bundle goes to a specific carrier at a specific post office. The USPS can then process this mail by shipping it directly to the specific post office rather than shipping it through a number of distribution facilities and processing it within those facilities. At the specific (destination) post office, the clerks can simply distribute each bundle to the appropriate carrier, rather than having to break down bundles and sort the mail within the bundle to the carriers. At each step in the distribution process, savings are realized by reducing the amount of processing required.
As carriers receive their mail for the day, they sort the mail in into what is referred to as xe2x80x9cCarrier Walk Sequencexe2x80x9d. They do so by xe2x80x9ccasingxe2x80x9d the mail. This operation is the process of placing each piece of mail into a cubbyhole in a matrix of cubbyholes. This is done in such a manner that by placing and then removing the mail from the cubbyholes the carrier creates a bundle of mail that is in exactly the sequence that they will deliver it. All mail for each address in the route is together. As the carrier walks or drives their route, they simply remove mail from the top of the bundle at each stop. Various metrics are used to determine the rate at which mail can be cased. Mail presented to the carrier in walk sequence can be cased much faster than purely random mail. Typically a carrier cases random mail at 8 pieces per minute and sequenced mail at 18 pieces per minute. In order to facilitate more productive casing operations, the USPS will pass a portion of the savings created by sequenced mail back to the mailers in incentives (i.e. mailers are charged less per piece to mail a sequenced mailing than to mail a random mailing).
Recently, the USPS has identified the need for a Flats Bundle Collator (FBC), such as the system disclosed in the aforementioned parent application U.S. Ser. No. 09/310,221, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,099. This system takes multiple flats (periodicals and similarly sized mail) mailings and automatically collates them together into a single bundle similar to the output of the carrier casing operation. In order to perform this operation, it was ""25 thought that each individual mailing would preferably be in carrier walk sequence and the system would then simply collate the sequenced mailings together. While this constraint is true for most collating systems, this invention describes a process that would eliminate this constraint for the Flats Bundle Collator by intelligently applying the inherent characteristics of the system design.
It is widely accepted in mailing and USPS circles that mailers would be provided incentives and would therefore provide mailings configured for processing on a Flats Bundle Collator. There are, however, a number of compelling reasons for expanding the capabilities of the Flats Bundle Collator described in U.S. Ser. No. 09/310,221, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,099, to process mailings that do not meet the criteria for these incentives.
There are a number of mail preparation options that are offered to mailers by the USPS. These options are tailored to accommodate varying mailing parameters such as the number of pieces per mailing, the density of mail per route, zone, or area, bar coding and addressing levels and the mail type itself (1st class, Standard A, or periodical). Within these options mailers determine the most cost-effective means of preparing and shipping their product.
This determination takes into account the time sensitivity of the mailing, the preparation costs and the mailing costs. To facilitate this process, the USPS provides customer data with regard to routes, zones and areas. The USPS does not provide mailers with complete sequence information (i.e. complete route information including 11 digit bar codes and the carrier walk sequence) to protect the privacy of its customers. The USPS does provide increasing levels of detail including zone and route customers and some modified sequence data (with corresponding incentives) constructed to maintain customer privacy but allow for casing operations to be more productive than casing random mail.
Currently, a large portion of flats mailings are prepared in a configuration know as Enhanced Carrier Route Line Of Travel (ECRLOT). This configuration provides flats in a quasi-sequence that overlaps Carrier Walk Sequence to varying degrees depending on the route itself and the carrier walk sequence. It is this configuration (LOT) and some levels of random mail that this invention addresses. The basic construction of LOT mailings is based on the concept (or mechanism) of xe2x80x9cBlock Facesxe2x80x9d. A Block Face is a representation of a portion of the carrier route. Typically a Block Face includes both a range of zip codes and a direction of travel (either ascending or descending addresses within the block face). Rather than providing the complete sequence of stops on a route LOT creates a series of sequences in Block Faces (and directions) that provides a varying degree of correlation to the carrier route depending on the route itself and nature of the LOT for that route. A typical example of a xe2x80x9cCarrier Walk Sequencexe2x80x94vs.xe2x80x94Line Of Travelxe2x80x9d is as follows. An imaginary carrier has a route that consists of only one street with 20 addresses on it. The carriers walk sequence is to deliver up the odd side of the street and then down the even side of the street. The Carrier Walk Sequence for this route is 1,3,5,7, . . . 19, 20, 18, 16,14 . . . 2. An LOT for this route could be represented as stops xe2x80x9c1-20 Axe2x80x9d (ascending) on that street. The mailer would prepare the mail for this route as 1,2,3,4,5 . . . 20. Ideally, the LOT for this route would divide the route into two block faces; one for the ascending odd-side of the street and one for the descending even side of the street. This construction would create a 100% correlation between the LOT and actual carrier walk sequence. In practical terms, carrier routes are much more complex than a single street and carriers often deliver to a portion of a street, turn off onto side streets and eventually return to the remainder of the original street. While it is not uncommon for a single street to be represented by multiple block faces to account for this, there is a varying degree of difference between the actual walk sequence and mailings created in LOT.
For the purpose of illustration, we will assume that the route is represented by a single block face. In the next example, we will illustrate the impact of two different block face representations for a small route consisting of three streets.
The table 1 above represents a portion of the carrier case from the previous example. Cases are set up so that carriers can place mail into the cubbyholes and after all of the mail is cased it can be removed in order so that the bundle of mail coming out of the case is in the carrier""s walk sequence. The first numbers in the table represent the street address on the route where the mail in that cubbyhole will get delivered. The numbers in parenthesis denote the delivery sequence point of that home. For example, 15 (8) means that house number 15 on that street is the 8th delivery point. In the above example, the carrier would have to case an LOT mailing by placing the first piece in the upper left cubbyhole 1(1), the second in the lower right cubbyhole 2(20), the third in the cubbyhole marked 3(2) and so on. Generally, this is slightly more efficient than completely random mail, however, it is not as efficient as it would be if the mail were prepared in the order 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,20,18,16,14,12,10,8,6,4,2. If the mail were prepared in that order, the carrier would know that the next piece in the mailing would be downstream (right or on the next lower tier) of the previous piece. By always moving right and lower into the case, the carrier is able to case the mail at a rate approximately three times faster than casing random mail.
Pragmatically, most mailings do not go to every house. Usually a mailing (i.e. Time magazine) is delivered to a small percentage of a carrier route. In the above case, a real mailing might only go to 4 houses. This tends to eliminate patterns and trends in the casing operation and leads to casing rates closer to random mail. This example demonstrates casing for a single street.
Carrier routes typically encompass a number of streets. Nationally, the average carrier route is approximately 400 stops. In many instances the carrier will turn off of a street onto another street (or cul-de-sac) and then return to the street to continue deliveries. In LOT configuration, each street may be prepared in whole and the casing operation addresses placing the turn-off street, or cul-de-sac into the correct sequence (in the middle of the original street). Each carrier also receives a number of mailings to process each day, so the casing process inefficiencies are repeated multiple times each morning.
In this example, approximately 50% of the mail pieces would have to be rejected as xe2x80x9cout of sequencexe2x80x9d on machinery designed to merge sequenced mail pieces because the machinery would be processing the mail to the carrier walk sequence. (The LOT configuration creates a mailing where every other mail piece does not meet the walk sequence construction if a mailing contained one piece for address on the route.)
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to collate out-of-spec items, such as mail items in line of travel delivery point sequence (LOT), with mail items in carrier walk sequence (CWS).
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for processing random items rejected as errors by a flats bundle collator system by reintroducing the rejected item as part of a repaired sequence.
The objects of the present invention are fulfilled by providing a method of collating a plurality of mail items into a final sequenced set of the items for delivery to predetermined delivery points, some of said mail items being pre-sequenced in delivery point sequence (DPS) of selected carrier routes, and other mail items being in a different order from the delivery point sequence, comprising the steps of:
a) feeding the mail items from a single input stream to a staging station;
b) sampling each mail item in the input stream to determine if the mail item is in the delivery point sequence, or a different order;
c) sorting the mail items at the staging station into a plurality of subsets of mail items re-sequenced into an intermediate order as an intermediate step to achieving said final sequenced set, said staging station having a plurality of storage units X1 to Xn, wherein n is the total number of storage units, said storage units temporarily storing said items in said subsets by;
1) inserting each mail item into any selected one of said storage units X1 to Xn in accordance with an insertion plan consistent with an extraction plan for the mail items from those storage units for achieving the delivery point sequence (DPS) of the final sequenced set of mail items;
2) rearranging the mail items in the different order into delivery point sequence (DPS) in the staging station by inserting those mail items into selectable storage units; and
3) selectively extracting the mail items from any selected one of the storage units X1 to Xn according to said extraction plan; and
d) merging the extracted mail items into a single output stream from the respective subsets of mail items into said final sequenced set in delivery point sequence (DPS).
The method further includes collecting portions of the output stream of the mail items in delivery point sequence and reversing the order thereof into batches of mail items in carrier walk sequence (CWS). The different order is in enhanced carrier route line of travel (LOT), as defined by The United States Postal Service, such that some of the mail items therein are sequenced corresponding to some of the delivery points of mail items in the delivery point sequence (DPS). LOT is determined as a function of block face identity, and direction of carry walk sequence (CWS) in that block, said block face identity representing a side of a street on a carrier delivery route.
The step of rearranging includes the steps of:
a) feeding a single input stream of mail items in the LOT group into a staging station;
b) determining which items in the stream are in order with the order of CWS, and which are in reverse order with respect thereto;
c) separating the in-order items and reverse-order items into separate subsets of items in the staging station; and
d) recombining the subsets in the staging station into one sequenced group of items in CWS.
The objects and aspects of the present invention will become more readily apparent by reference to the following drawings.